


Launchpad 2.0

by Mighty_Ant



Category: Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991), DuckTales (Cartoon 1987), DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Double-O-Duck as a quasi-different character, Double-O-Duck returns, Established Relationship, LP's self-worth is circling the drain, M/M, Post-LGD, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Spoilers: Drake is a morosexual, split personality but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28625685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mighty_Ant/pseuds/Mighty_Ant
Summary: “What happened to Launchpad?”Double-O-Duck sighs agitatedly, running a hand through his coiffed hair. “I’ve already explained. IamLaunchpad.”Darkwing Duck watches him from the opposite end of their shared cell, the distrust behind the eyes of his mask burning and unfamiliar. “Explain it to me again,” he demands.
Relationships: Drake Mallard & Launchpad McQuack, Drake Mallard/Launchpad McQuack
Comments: 37
Kudos: 158





	1. Chapter 1

Double-O-Duck never thought he would find himself back in a F.O.W.L. holding cell. 

Then again, he never thought he would be  _ back  _ at all. 

The cell is the same as the ones he and Dewey were trapped in so many months ago, cinder block walls and a protect-o glass shield, only this time he doesn’t have any rubber bands at his disposal or a convenient troupe of hyper-intelligent lab experiments to free him. Best case scenario, they somehow find a way to jerry rig the control panel from over fifteen feet away. Worst case, they wait for an Egghead to collect them and overwhelm the poor devil. 

Of course, that’s not the only thing that is markedly different this time around. 

“What happened to Launchpad?” 

Double-O-Duck sighs agitatedly, running a hand through his coiffed hair. “I’ve already explained. I  _ am  _ Launchpad.”

Darkwing Duck watches him from the opposite end of their shared cell, the distrust behind the eyes of his mask burning and unfamiliar. “Explain it to me again,” he demands. 

  
  


Double-O-Duck both is and is  _ not  _ Launchpad McQuack. In some respects, they’re one and the same. Their memories are a singular set, Dewford is his best friend, little brother and charge all rolled into one, and he’ll do anything to protect his family. What the Intelliray granted Double-O-Duck (aside from his existence) was perspective and a straightforward intelligence that three decades worth of crashes had otherwise nullified. 

Simply put, Double-O-Duck is an improved version of Launchpad McQuack, a version people can count on for something other than bumbling ineptitude and the occasional happy accident. 

However, his existence is fleeting. Double-O-Duck is created and destroyed amid chaos; a brief, brilliant supernova that could have changed everyone’s opinion of him for the better and allowed him to be an asset to his family. But Steelbeak’s a fool who doesn’t comprehend the magnitude of what he’s unleashing, and Double-O-Duck does what Launchpad always does best—throw himself headfirst into certain danger. 

It’s with a heavy heart that he makes peace with his necessary sacrifice for Dewey, for Duckburg, and puts himself in the path of a blast that scours away his newfound existence like flame to flash paper. Reduced to an observer, locked behind the eyes of the blind and deaf Launchpad McQuack who once held the knowledge and skills to protect his family and reveal the true face of F.O.W.L. Instead, he does neither. Instead, he lives his life as though nothing has changed. 

For half a year, Double-O-Duck lives a silent and solitary existence as he bears witness to the incessant blundering of the man he used to be. 

Unfocused while facing Jormungandr, despite the fate of the world hanging in the balance and Uncle Scrooge badly injured. Lost to delusion and fear on Halloween, tormenting children and monsters alike. Those crucial nights in St. Canard, Darkwing fitting perfectly in the circle of his arms and Gosalyn looking to him for answers and reassurance as a crimson portal crackled and sparked, all too similar to the blinding light that locked Double-O-Duck away. 

Falling in love with Drake Mallard was as easy falling on him in a dead faint.

His sheer reserve of strength and steely-eyed determination, the refusal to fail, to give up and stay down, practically take Launchpad’s breath away. He’s humble in the face of his ego, hesitant to don the cape and cowl of their mutual hero until Launchpad encourages him. Launchpad knows that Drake can become  _ fantastic,  _ something beyond the Darkwing Duck they grew up with, if he just put his mind to it.

Of course, Launchpad doesn’t have the words for this. He could never properly describe the way DW entrances him when he gesticulates, his hands fluid and alive in the air, or how he’s distracted by the breadth of Drake’s shoulders. He can’t put to words the unworthiness that burns through him whenever Drake looks up at him with trust, gratitude, and dare he say it,  _ love,  _ as though Launchpad isn’t the one lucky enough to be caught in his orbit. 

Instead, Launchpad’s clumsiness paves the way. Clumsy bearhugs, clumsy advice, a clumsy confession in the gloom of early morning. Even Drake’s smile, brilliant and blinding in the dark, and Drake’s hands cradling his face, carding through his hair, do little to temper the certainty that Launchpad and Double-O-Duck share, because at the end of the day they are one and the same—he’s still not good enough. 

  
  
  
  
  


Rediscovering the F.O.W.L. base beneath Funzo’s is practically a fluke. 

Launchpad hasn’t been here since he played that video game with Dewey, though the events of that day remain hazy and uncertain in his mind, almost dreamlike. Fittingly, that same night is the first occurrence of the Dream. Though perhaps nightmare would be a more apt descriptor.

It’s the same every time, on and off for the last six months: a beam of red light so blinding he thinks the back of his eyelids will never be rid of the stain and the sensation of a fall, perilous and plummeting, that jolts him to consciousness in a cold sweat. His memory of the nightmare fades until the next night it tears him from sleep. 

He can’t say what brings him to ask Drake to stop the Ratcatcher, can’t explain why the darkened silhouette of a children’s arcade brings him so much dread. They’ve just dropped Gosalyn off the mansion for a sleepover and are meant to be well on their way back to St. Canard for patrol. But even if he wanted to, Launchpad can’t stop himself from gripping Drake’s arm and saying, “Let me check something out, DW.”

Drake humors him; whether because he actually trusts his judgement or because he just wants to try out his new set of lock picks is debatable, but in the back of his mind Launchpad is grateful. The bulk of his focus is devoted to the déjà vu that increasingly overwhelms him as they slip in through the side door. 

The feathers on the back of his neck stand on end as they cross the sticky floor, their footsteps almost soundless in the otherwise empty, expansive building. Aside from Drake’s flashlight, their only source of illumination are the screens of the arcade games a ways off, flickering noiselessly. But Launchpad can’t fight the sensation of being watched that grows in intensity when he makes a beeline for the ballpit. 

“Launchpad?” Drake whispers behind him, as confused as Launchpad has ever heard him. But he has no words to explain the compulsion that’s driving him so he doesn’t try to conjure any. Instead, he climbs into the ballpit. 

He immediately sinks up to his waist, the balls rustling hollowly around him. Launchpad doesn’t hesitate before wading forward, prodding at the uneven foam flooring with the toe of his boots. He still isn’t sure what he’s searching for when he hears Drake climb in after him. 

“Okay,” he says to Launchpad’s back in a tone that demands an answer. “What’s going on here, sweetheart?”

The pet name kindles a new and welcome affection beneath his sternum, stoking the fire that has been burning and steadily building for months. Whereas Launchpad often speaks without thinking, Drake hyper analyzes every syllable before it leaves his mouth. While it can result in his anxiety taking over and making him second guess himself, other times, most times, it gives every stutter and hesitation greater meaning because he chooses his words so carefully. Launchpad knows how much thought is put into every ‘sweetheart’ Drake utters. 

Before he can figure out a response that makes even the barest lick of sense, the secret entrance Launchpad belatedly realizes he was searching for slides open beneath their feet. Both of them fall through with a yelp, and a rainbow cascade of plastic follows them down. 

“LP,” Drake hisses, minutes later as they peer around a corner into a gray stoned hallway nearly identical to all the ones they’ve passed. “How did you know there was a secret base down here?” 

The déjà vu buzzing in Launchpad’s ears has worsened, adding to the sense of unreality that’s plagued him all night. It’s as though he’s dreaming while at the same time never feeling more awake. All Launchpad knows for certain is that he’s been here before, but he can’t remember  _ how  _ or  _ why  _ he’s so certain _.  _

“I, uh, I don’t know,” he says truthfully, and wishes he had the answers Drake needs. 

They creep down the hall, peering through the windows of the few doors they cross and find unlit laboratories and storage rooms on the other side. Launchpad is grateful they’re taking a stealthier approach, though he isn’t certain why he feels that way. Not until they hear the crackle of a radio from around the next corner and the pound of marching footsteps.

“Squadron 87, report to Sector C. We have reports of an unauthorized P.I.T. entry.”

Launchpad freezes at the same time Drake swings into action. He grabs Launchpad by the front of his coat and pushes the nearest door open with his other hand. Drake dives through the opening, dragging Launchpad with him.

Launchpad has the presence of mind to close the door behind them, as quietly as he’s able, and both he and Drake press up against it to catch a glimpse of whoever’s coming around the corner. Their caution is rewarded as a squad of Eggheads file past the window, all of them armed, their faces uniformly blank. Drake is practically vibrating beside him. 

“A secret F.O.W.L. base,” he whispers as loudly as he dares. “We’ve uncovered a  _ secret F.O.W.L. base  _ underneath Funzo’s. They’ve been quiet for  _ weeks _ . LP, do you have any idea what this means?” 

“Uh, no more two for one pizzas?” Launchpad answers uncertainly. 

“It _ means,” _ Drake gushes, clutching Launchpad’s shoulders and shaking him a little, a manic grin lighting up his face, “you and I are going to be goshdarn  _ heroes.”  _

Drake doesn’t swear often, and the pointed non-expletives he’s taken to using because of Gosalyn usually get a long laugh out of Launchpad. But the sickening sense of familiarity continues to weigh him down, and he’s barely able to let out a chuckle. 

Luckily, Drake doesn’t notice as he spins away to examine the room they’re hiding in. it’s presumably some sort of storage space, and there are shelves lined with everything from bizarre weapons to spare Egghead helmets. Launchpad follows him without thought, scanning the room as Drake fiddles with his burner phone, muttering about the lack of signal. 

“If I can get ahold of McDuck or Fenton or, eugh,  _ Gizmoduck… _ .”

Drake’s voice fades away as something draws Launchpad to one weapon in particular. 

It’s a gun unlike any he’s ever seen, even with all the adventures under his belt. It’s sleek and geometric, like a ray gun out of a cartoon. There’s a crystal of some kind embedded where the barrel should be, but something tells him that this isn’t the sort of gun that fires bullets. 

The déjà vu that’s been sending his senses into overload finally and abruptly quiets as he picks up the weapon. He should put it down, walk away, because nothing good ever comes out of a F.O.W.L. invention. But a whisper in the back of his mind tells him he should be happy to hold it. That same voice tells him to look at its buttstock, where a dial is pointed to a negative sign. He turns the dial the opposite way, toward the positive sign, and the weapon comes to life, humming in his hands. 

It feels like he’s doing the right thing when he turns it on himself and pulls the trigger. Blue light floods his vision before darkness overtakes it. 

  
  
  
  


An unknowable amount of time later, he wakes up on the cold concrete floor, looking up at Darkwing’s panic stricken face. 

“Launchpad,” he breathes, relief making his features slacken, but Double-O-Duck barely hears him.

Memory rushes to the forefront of his mind with almost overwhelming speed, deafening him to all else as he finally recalls his and Steelbeak’s first confrontation, the accidental discovery F.O.W.L., the satellitehouse, his fall. All at once, he’s aware of the half-year he spent trapped, silenced, practically useless to his family against the forces lurking in the dark. That his patchwork memories were enough to spur his return is nothing short of miraculous. 

“Launchpad,” Darkwing says again, when his silence grows too long. Concern has his voice wavering, and his small, strong hands smooth over Double-O-Duck’s chest in an unnecessary, if pleasant, search for an injury that isn’t there. “Are you alright? What happened?” 

Double-O-Duck sits up gingerly. Unfortunately, his collapse apparently garnered him a nasty bump on the back on the head.

“I’m fine,” he responds, tamping down the accent that naturally arises. No sense in worrying Drake any more than he already has. “But I’m...not sure what that was.” The sting of guilt over his lie is assuaged by the elation he struggles not to let show on his face. Finally, he can be the partner Darkwing deserves, a man worthy of Scrooge’s trust, a proper guardian for Gosalyn. 

He pushes himself back to his feet, and though his movements are smooth, Darkwing hovers over him in a way that makes him smile and feel terribly cared for. When he shows no sign of keeling over, Darkwing briefly stoops to recover the intelligence enhancement ray that Double-O-Duck dropped. 

“Well, I guess it must be some sort of stun gun,” Darkwing says slowly, examining the gun with a wary eye, as though it might fire again at the slightest provocation. Double-O-Duck is abruptly struck with the mad desire to take the ray from Darkwing’s hands and smash it on the ground. It would all but guarantee that he’d never be locked away again and reduced to his old foolish, bumbling self. 

Before he can act on this impulse, they hear voices coming from the other side of the door once again. Darkwing sets the ray down with exaggerated care on the nearest shelf and hurries over to peer through the window. 

“Another patrol,” he says grimly. “We’ve been here too long. We have to let the others know what we’ve found, but I can’t call anyone until we’re topside; something’s blocking the signal.”

“Lead the way,” Double-O-Duck replies. 

Darkwing fixes him with a worried look. The stern vigilante mask that’s started coming so much more naturally to him slips in favor of his true feelings. “Are you sure you’re alright?” he insists. 

_ Alright? _ It’s too small a word to describe the depth of his relief and eagerness to leap back into the fray. With his intelligence and skill returned to him, he’s more  _ alright  _ than ever. Confident in a way he hasn’t felt in half a year, he takes Darkwing’s hand and raises it to his beak so he might drop a kiss on his knuckles. 

“Don’t worry about me,” he says, delighting in the startled blush staining Darkwing’s cheeks. He watches Darkwing make a few attempts to swallow, feeling terribly pleased. 

“Okay then,” he answers weakly, before immediately clearing his throat. “Let’s uh, let’s get dangerous.” 

Checking again that the coast is clear, Darkwing opens the door to the supply closet. They slip out into a quiet, gray hallway, heading back the way they came. Double-O-Duck knows they’re walking blind, and his ineffectualness grates at him. But there’s nothing for it; he hasn’t been here in half a year and his enhanced memory might be good, but it isn’t good enough to recall each twist and turn he made in this labyrinthine base. 

The stomp of footsteps around the upcoming corner has them faltering in their tracks. There’s no convenient closet at hand, the nearby walls blank and utilitarian. Unease has Double-O-Duck’s heart rabbiting at the base of his throat, but he ignores it as he grabs hold of Darkwing’s arm, tugging him in the opposite direction of the approaching patrol. A confrontation may be inevitable at this rate, but the longer they go undiscovered the better. 

Darkwing follows him without question, which is heartening, but ultimately for naught. 

Around the next corner, they find no less than a dozen Eggheads waiting for them, each of them armed with blasters. The technology is familiar to him, almost Moonlander in origin. Reverse-engineered copies, perhaps. 

“Well, well, well! It looks to me like we’ve got a couple of trespassers.”

And just their luck, the Eggheads aren’t alone. 

Agent Steelbeak is exactly as Double-O-Duck remembers him: impeccably dressed, his cruel beak curled into a shining smirk. He carries no weapon on his person, or at least none that are visible; there’s no need, when his bite alone is enough to draw blood. And just like before, his arrogance falters in the face of the unexpected. 

“What— _ you _ again?” Steelbeak squawks. 

Darkwing darts forward, dropping into a fighting stance. His proud voice fills the hallway. “Thought you’d seen the last of Darkwing Duck, eh, metal mouth?” 

Steelbeak blinks hard, as if only just noticing Darkwing’s presence. “Huh? Aren’t you the twerp I beat up for that circuit thingy?” 

Darkwing’s shoulders droop in dismay, only to rise again with his mounting confusion. He follows Steelbeak’s line of sight, turning to look at Double-O-Duck over his shoulder, eyes alight with realization if not understanding. 

While he takes the insult nearly as personally as Darkwing surely does, a small part of Double-O-Duck is thrilled at being recognized, if only to properly demonstrate his reclaimed prowess to his partner. After all, up until fifteen minutes ago, as far as either of them knew Darkwing was the only one to have faced Steelbeak before. 

“LP?” he says quietly, uncertain and seeking answers. Double-O-Duck is heartened by his ability to finally provide them. 

But this isn’t the time, so for now he just reaches out and briefly clasps Darkwing’s shoulder in reassurance. “It’s been a while, Steelbeak,” Double-O-Duck says loudly, letting more of his accent bleed into his words. “Not that I picture this meeting going any differently than our first.”

Steelbeak sputters indignantly as the Eggheads around him murmur amongst themselves. “It  _ is  _ you!” he accuses, yellow eyes narrowing. “You smug sonova...Wait... _ how _ is it you? Last time you got hit with…” Steelbeak cuts himself off with a long, nasal laugh. “Oh, you gotta be kiddin’ me! Did you bust in here just to get smart again?”

“Launchpad,” Darkwing hisses out of the corner of his mouth, more insistent than before. “What is he talking about?”

Double-O-Duck smoothes his long bangs back into the coiffed hairstyle he hadn’t realized he’d missed. “I promise I’ll explain everything once Steelbeak is dealt with,” he begins to say, when the F.O.W.L. agent in question yawns theatrically. 

“Bo-ring!” he says in singsong. “You two can continue this snoozefest with Director Buzzard. Eggheads, scramble ‘em!” 

The Eggheads need no further prompting as all dozen of them launch forward with blasters at the ready. Like a thrown switch, Double-O-Duck blocks out all distractions save for the threat headed his way. The focus that the intelligence enchantment ray grants him is greatly appreciated as he fells the first two Eggheads to approach him with swift blows to the head and flips a third over his shoulder. 

While he’s not one to ever gun for a fight, Double-O-Duck would be lying if he said he hasn’t looked forward to partnering with Darkwing now that they’re more evenly matched in skill. He’s no slouch without the ray’s enhancement, and Darkwing hasn’t voiced any complaints when they spar, but he’s undeniably  _ better  _ this way. A better fighter, a better partner, nevermind Dewey’s long-ago promises that he was enough just as he was. Enough to be a child’s best friend, perhaps, but nothing more. 

Now spared even the possibility of a bumbling mistake, he leaps eagerly into the fray. 

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Darkwing surrounded by a trio of Eggheads, and immediately moves to rectify that. Knocking the blaster out of the hand of the next Egghead that rushes at him, he grabs them by the arm and swings them at the group Darkwing is fighting. Double-O-Duck doesn’t bother with a shout of warning, not for a move they’ve executed half a hundred times before. 

But Darkwing isn’t where Double-O-Duck expects him to be. 

He somehow moved without Double-O-Duck’s notice, the three Eggheads he was facing off against lying in a pile at his feet. Now he’s standing directly in the path of the careening Egghead Double-O-Duck just launched his way, and they collide forcefully. 

He watches with no small amount of horror as Darkwing collapses under the weight of the thrown body. His hat goes flying as he knocks his head against the floor, and while Darkwing looks dazed it doesn’t prevent him from knocking out the Egghead with a swift jab of his elbow. “What gives, LP?” he barks, clutching the side of his head. 

“I-I didn’t see you there, Darkwing,” Double-O-Duck blurts, neatly sidestepping the Egghead running at him with a war cry. While Darkwing might not be badly hurt by his own stubborn standards, the slipup rattles Double-O-Duck in a way he never thought possible. 

Though he shows no outward sign of it as he trips up another Egghead and slams them into the wall, his mind spins like a globe off its axis. They’ve never made a mistake like that before.  _ He’s  _ never made a mistake like that. Even while fighting each other in Darkwing’s trailer a year ago, they were in  _ sync _ , aware of each other’s movements and reacting accordingly. Double-O-Duck shouldn’t be making mistakes that not even regular old  _ Launchpad  _ would. 

There’s a moment of pause once Darkwing punches one of the remaining Eggheads in the solar plexus and drives their face into his knee, shattering their visor. Double-O-Duck starts to go to him, guilt tightening a stony fist in the pit of his stomach when he sees the blossoming bruise at the edge of Darkwing’s temple. 

“Darkwing, I’m sorry,” he starts to say. “Are you alright?”

Movement in the corner of his eye, and Double-O-Duck’s instincts are all that spare him from the broad yellow fist plowing through the air scant inches from his face. He bends over backward, nearly tripping over an unconscious Egghead to avoid what would have been a crippling blow. 

“Trouble in paradise?” Steelbeak chortles, unperturbed by his near-miss. His eyes are alight with a sickening combination of malice and glee, fists tightly coiled and shoulders hanging loose. Double-O-Duck hasn’t forgotten the power behind those fists, Steelbeak’s casual, confident violence that allowed him to be ceaseless in his assault. Double-O-Duck was able to best him last time by getting into his head, but he doesn’t have that luxury when his own thoughts drag him down the sinkhole in his mind. 

“Don’t worry, we’ve got a cozy, quiet cell for you two to talk things out,” Steelbeak continues leisurely. 

Double-O-Duck lunges at him, coming in low at the last second to take him out at the knee. Experience tells him that aiming for Steelbeak’s face straight away will turn out worse for him than Steelbeak. 

Still, he fails. 

Steelbeak steps out of his reach and comes back in close to deliver a kick to the underside of Double-O-Duck’s chin. He goes sprawling onto his back, immediately diving out of the way when Steelbeak jabs at him with his jagged beak. It’s a move most birds wouldn’t attempt in a fight out of fear of chipping, or worse, cracking their beak. Having seen Steelbeak once splinter stone, Double-O-Duck knows he has no such compunctions. 

“You’re off your game, smarty-pants,” Steelbeak taunts as Double-O-Duck rolls back onto his feet and blocks his punches. “Maybe Heron’s Intelliray isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Double-O-Duck glowers, ducking back to avoid a hammerfist punch. His control is fraying, and he speaks without thinking. “It’s enough to stop you,” he snaps, a quick jab making Steelbeak clutch at his ribs with a grunt. When he lifts his head, he glances over Double-O-Duck’s shoulder and his grimace morphs into a smile. 

“What about your little friend?”

Turning around would be a mistake. A stupid, rookie mistake that Launchpad would make, not Double-O-Duck.  _ But what if,  _ his traitorous mind hisses, tying up in knots.  _ What if it’s not a trick.  _ When it comes to Drake Mallard, Launchpad McQuack will always be a fool. 

So Double-O-Duck turns and sees Darkwing dangling limp in the grip of two Eggheads. His head hangs forward in unconsciousness and his eyes are closed and his hat’s still missing and Double-O-Duck’s stomach freezes in painful piercing cold before dropping past his feet altogether. 

“I think it’s about time you joined him,” he distantly hears Steelbeak say, before there’s a pain in the side of his head and the floor is rushing up to meet him. 

Darkness engulfs his vision for the second time that day. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the incredible response to my first chapter! I hope you enjoy this final part just as much

Waking up on a cold concrete floor is a relief. Even more so is Darkwing’s face, furrowed brow and all, hovering over him. 

“You’re alright,” Double-O-Duck breathes, before he even takes in his surroundings. A risky move, but he knows he’s safe with Darkwing beside him. 

Darkwing’s eyebrows rise, surprise flickering over his face, before he nods.

“Left my hat behind,” he grouses, and that’s when Double-O-Duck knows he really  _ is  _ alright, despite the condition he saw him in last. Darkwing offers him a hand up and Double-O-Duck gladly takes it, pulling himself up to his feet. A truly terrible headache is radiating from his right temple, a result of all the falling and blunt trauma he’s inflicted on his skull. The pain crescendos briefly as he stands before dipping into a more tolerable registry. 

The cell F.O.W.L. has put them in is identical to ones they threw him and Dewey into half a year ago. Concrete floor, cinder block walls, and a single metal bunk jutting out of one side. Unlike the last time, there’s no clear mode of escape. 

“Well,” Double-O-Duck sighs, hands on his hips, “that could’ve gone better.”

Darkwing moves, almost too fast for him to follow. 

He grabs fistfuls of Double-O-Duck’s jacket, shoving him against the wall of their prison with such force his head bounces on the stone, doing no favors for his headache. But Darkwing pins him in place, and with his face scant inches from his own he snaps, “Who are you?” Each word is sharp, his tone biting, in a way Double-O-Duck hadn’t thought Darkwing capable of. “Who are you, and what have you done with Launchpad?” 

Double-O-Duck’s mind spins and not just from his concussion. He gawks down at Darkwing, uncomprehending. “I-I  _ am  _ Launchpad.”

Darkwing shakes his head once, sharply, and his gaze burns through Double-O-Duck’s. The leather of his jacket creaks in Darkwing’s grip. “ _ Launchpad _ doesn’t know the names of high-level F.O.W.L. agents. _ I _ don’t know the names of high-level F.O.W.L. agents,” he sneers, incredulity warring with disgust as he gives Double-O-Duck a once over. “As far as doppelgangers go, I would’ve expected better from F.O.W.L. You didn’t even get his  _ accent  _ right.” 

Double-O-Duck’s heart gives a pang, painful against his sternum, and the cavern of his ribcage aches with bitter guilt. He was too eager, too ready to leap back in the fray as Double-O-Duck, that he hadn’t considered how Darkwing would accept the change. It was one thing for Dewford not to question it, he thought they were in a video game after all. But he’s been supremely unfair to Darkwing, his partner, his boyfriend. His rage comes from a place of care, and that alarms Double-O-Duck as much as it warms him. 

Moving slowly, he covers Darkwing’s hands with his own. Darkwing tenses beneath him, his glare intensifying, and Double-O-Duck knows that if he doesn’t hurry, he’s liable to be on the receiving end of one of Darkwing’s admirable right hooks. 

“Darkwing,” he murmurs. “Drake.” He watches his partner flinch, the fear flitting across his face painful to watch. “You have a Darkwing lunchbox with a dent shaped like your face. I had the same one growing up, but yours was special. In your trailer, on the day we met, you told me that you hoped you could inspire some other kid out there, like Darkwing did for you.” 

Halfway through his second sentence, Darkwing begins trembling. His eyes move furiously over Double-O-Duck’s face, his expression vulnerable without the shadow of his hat to obscure it but at the same time maddeningly blank. He’s never had so much trouble reading Darkwing’s emotions before. 

Darkwing gives no indication that he believes him, much less that he’ll release him. Double-O-Duck feels desperation welling in his throat, a fledgling terror that he’s become too different for Darkwing to recognize. As his calm frays, words trip ungainly off his tongue in his desperation to convince Darkwing. 

“We lit a candle on the bay for Jim,” he says in a rush. “You accidentally beat up a group of movers when Dewey and I first visited you in St. Canard. Gosalyn likes it when we sing her lullaby but she pretends that she doesn’t…” Double-O-Duck’s clever tongue fails him, and he stares down at Darkwing with a million and one memories hanging in the air. 

“I-I don’t know what else to say,” he manages to stutter. 

Darkwing isn’t looking him in the eye anymore. “No,” he mutters at Double-O-Duck’s chest. “No, I believe you.” Darkwing releases his jacket with excruciating slowness and steps back, hands trembling at his sides. Before Double-O-Duck can feel any sort of relief, he says, “You have Launchpad’s memories, at least.” 

Double-O-Duck’s last reserve cracks and he throws his hands in the air. “Because I  _ am  _ Launchpad! I already told you—”

“You haven’t told me anything,” Darkwing cuts him off, his jaw tight enough that Double-O-Duck’s own aches in sympathy. “Not why you don’t sound or act like Launchpad. Or know things he doesn’t.”

Darkwing’s right, of course. Even with Double-O-Duck’s enhanced intelligence, he’s still the smarter of the two. Double-O-Duck isn’t getting out of this without an explanation, one he never considered having to give. Part of him thought Darkwing would gladly accept this new version of himself, no questions asked. Maybe if he’d hidden the accent. 

But things are what they are, and he supposes answers are in order first. 

“I am Launchpad,” he begins. “I wasn’t replaced or brainwashed or anything of the sort. I knew about the F.O.W.L. base and how to infiltrate it because I have been here before.”

Darkwing’s eyes widen behind his mask. “When did you—”

“Months ago,” Double-O-Duck interrupts with a sweep of his arm. “Dewford and I were playing secret agent in a virtual reality that would become all too real. By the end, he was convinced everything had been part of the game, and my memory of the incident was largely erased.” 

“That explains how you knew Steelbeak,” Darkwing says slowly, before gesturing at the whole of him, “but not all...this.”

“Yes, well…” Double-O-Duck rocks back on his heels, uncertain of the quickest way to go about this. “Last time, I was accidentally hit with an intelligence enhancement ray. Steelbeak meant to rob me of what little smarts I had but instead increased it a hundredfold. My reflexes are sharper, as I’m sure you noticed, and my mental acuity is next to none.”

Darkwing just gapes at him. It takes him a hard blink and a shake of the head, before he says, “I’m sorry, back up. You’re saying a F.O.W.L. weapon did this to you?” 

Double-O-Duck rubs the back of his neck, discomfort prickling down his spine. “Well not a...a weapon, exactly, but yes I suppose you could call it—”

“The gun in the storage room.” 

He looks up to meet Darkwing’s hard, inscrutable eyes.

“That was it, wasn’t it?” he demands. “I thought it went off by accident, but you...you shot yourself with it, didn’t you? On purpose.” 

Double-O-Duck winces. “Yes, I suppose I did. You have to understand, I was operating on  déjà vu and instinct getting us into this base. My memories were blocked until the ray restored them. I didn’t mean to find it, but when I did, I knew I had to use it on myself.” 

Darkwing paces, unable to keep still while agitated. It’s a short circuit, five feet in one direction, turn, five feet in the opposite. “Did Launchpad have a choice?” he rattles off, the consummate detective, but it rankles at Double-O-Duck now because there’s no need to question something so clearly  _ good _ . “Or were you...I don’t know, possessing him somehow?” 

“As I have already told you,  _ I’m  _ Launchpad,” Double-O-Duck says, more forcefully than he intends to.

Darkwing meets his ire with his own, marching up to him until their bodies are scant inches apart. “Launchpad would know better than to shoot himself with some random piece of F.O.W.L. tech,” he snaps.

Double-O-Duck feels feverish, confusion and exasperation warring noxiously inside of him. He and Darkwing have never fought like this before, never  _ spoken  _ to each other like this before. They’ve trusted each other since that fateful day in his trailer, since they watched Jim disappear in smoke and flame, since he handed Darkwing his hat among the wreckage. He doesn’t understand why Darkwing suddenly feels out of his reach. 

“It wasn’t random!” Double-O-Duck exclaims, finally at his wits end. “Finding the ray was happenstance, I’ll admit, but part of me remembered what it would do to me. I knew it would make me better.” 

Darkwing goes still. 

The ensuing silence is crushing. The gray walls of their prison press in against him and his headache pounds, the blood rushing in his ears reminiscent of thunder. Darkwing operates on instinct, fast-moving and fast-talking. A silent Darkwing is an unpredictable one. 

What do you mean ‘better’?” he asks, tone colorless. 

Finally, a chance to explain. A chance to make Darkwing see reason. “Look at me,” Double-O-Duck insists, splaying his arms at his sides. “Really look, Drake. I’m smarter this way, faster and more useful than I used to be.”

“Useful?” Darkwing repeats, like he’s tasted something foul. 

Double-O-Duck huffs gently, because of course that’s what Darkwing chooses to focus on. “You know what I mean.

“No, I don’t,” Darkwing retorts, “I love Launchpad the way he is. I’d never ask him—”

“Of course you wouldn’t, because you didn’t know that you could!” Double-O-Duck interrupts him, so eager to get to his point that he lets the continued slight against his identity slide this time. “I was forced to give this up last time to save Dewey and Duckburg. But there’s no reason for that now.” He steps forward, projecting his movements to avoid startling Darkwing, and takes his hands delicately in his own. “I can finally be good enough for you,” he breathes, quiet, in the space between them. 

He feels Darkwing’s hands shake, and he’d be more concerned if he wasn’t so overwhelmingly relieved that Darkwing hasn’t pulled away from him altogether. 

When he speaks again, Darkwing’s voice is rasping. “I...I made you feel like you weren’t good enough for me?” 

Double-O-Duck chuckles, pressing Darkwing’s hands just a little tighter. “I know I disappoint you sometimes,” he says gently, tilting his head to try and meet Darkwing’s eyes. “I’ve tried my best to be the partner you deserve, though history has shown that my best is less than good enough.”

“Who told you that?” Darkwing demands, with an alacrity that startles Double-O-Duck. Darkwing squeezes his hands nearly to the point of pain. “Who told you that you weren’t good enough?” 

“Well, uh,” Double-O-Duck stumbles as Darkwing’s dark eyes pin him in place. “Nobody had to,” he asserts. “Or I should say nobody has had the heart. I’m not someone to be taken seriously or trusted with matters of import.” 

“Bullfeathers!” Darkwing snaps, dropping Double-O-Duck’s hands as though they’ve scalded him. His not-quite swear offers little levity from the rekindled fury radiating off of him. “I’ve trusted Launchpad with my identity from day  _ one _ . I trust him to keep me  _ honest _ . I trust him with Gosalyn’s  _ life. _ Launchpad doesn’t need to be better. He’s not perfect, but nobody is! I’m certainly not. I would never expect or-or want that from him, so I don’t know where you get off assuming otherwise!”

Enhancement or no, Double-O-Duck doesn’t anger easily. Whether too carefree or too cautious, his temper is slow to build and slower still to act upon. But Darkwing insists on speaking to him like a stranger. He refuses to acknowledge the good that Double-O-Duck has done, the improvements he’s made. 

Doesn’t Darkwing understand that he’s doing all of this for him? 

He takes a breath, his chest swelling with his anger and irritation and the words to convey it. He looks at Darkwing, staring back at him with flinty eyes and squared shoulders, always ready for a fight. 

But Double-O-Duck realizes he doesn’t want to be Darkwing’s enemy. He doesn’t want to prolong this confusing argument, not when he’d been so certain that Darkwing would be relieved. This should have been a load of his back; never again would he need to worry about Launchpad bumbling his way through another mission. 

But it seems that he’s gone and made a mess of things anyway. 

Double-O-Duck’s exhale is ragged. “How many times do I have to tell you that I  _ am  _ Launchpad,” he says, shoulders sinking heavily. “I’m right here, Drake.”

He recognizes Darkwing’s hesitation in the way his gaze wavers, how his throat bobs with a harsh swallow. But when he speaks, his expression is locked down in a way Double-O-Duck is unable to decipher.

“You haven’t called me ‘DW’ once.” 

It’s a statement uttered almost without inflection, but the tilt of Darkwing’s chin speaks to a sense of finality that the bare accusation does not. For the first time, doubt sneaks into the back of Double-O-Duck’s mind, sharp and unexpected. 

He’s still the same man. That’s what he’s told himself, what he thought he knew. Double-O-Duck is Launchpad with all the rough edges sanded down to produce the perfect partner, the perfect pilot, the perfect spy. But maybe he lost part of himself in the process. 

Maybe he lost the part that made him Launchpad. The one that let him look at Drake and read his thoughts in the furrow of his brow, the lightness of his smile. The one that knew the right thing to say to reassure him, not push him away. 

Darkwing leaves Double-O-Duck where he stands, arms hanging loose and useless at his sides. He sits down on their cell’s single bunk, facing the solid Protecto-glass wall to catch the first glimpse of F.O.W.L. when they send someone to interrogate their prisoners. Double-O-Duck’s newfound analytical mind deduces this in seconds, and it leaves him feeling vaguely ill. 

He takes a halting step toward Darkwing as the distance between their bodies seems to yawn and crumble inward into an impassable abyss. 

“Darkwing,” he says, desperate to salvage, to soothe, but he doesn’t let another word trip off his tongue when Drake shakes his head. 

He doesn’t look in Double-O-Duck’s direction. “Let’s not talk for a while.” 

And so they don’t. 

  
  
  


Freedom comes in the form of half a dozen Eggheads, as High Command clearly doesn’t consider Darkwing or Double-O-Duck enough of a threat to merit the escort of an actual agent. 

Darkwing obviously takes offense to this, scoffing loudly as an Egghead slowly raises their cell’s Protect-o-glass barrier. The remainder stand along the wall priming their blasters. But Darkwing doesn’t wait until the door is open all the way; he slides through the gap, and is on his feet quick enough to deck two Eggheads before their fingers can do more than twitch their trigger fingers. 

Double-O-Duck has to wait a handful of excruciating seconds before he can help, his frame too broad to fit beneath the glass until the door has gone up a few more inches. He follows Darkwing’s lead the instant he’s able, and as he stands back up just in time to clothesline the Egghead who’d been making a run for Darkwing’s unprotected back. 

They make quick work of the remaining three Eggheads, knocking blasters out of hands and kicking bodies into walls, until he and Darkwing are the only two still standing. 

“Let’s get out of here before they send reinforcements,” Drake says on an exhale, rubbing the back of his neck. He turns toward the exit and immediately trips over the body of an unconscious Egghead, falling forward with a yelp. 

Double-O-Duck moves out of instinct, out of habit, and offers Darkwing a hand up. 

At the beginning, when their friendship was laced with a delicate, electric tension neither could put a name to, their hands had always seemed to linger. Helping the other off the mat after a spar, catching one another when a criminal’s fist couldn’t be avoided, or pulling each other back to their feet when either of their natural clumsiness got the better of them. Their hands clasped together, they would allow the touch to linger, Launchpad’s palm broad where Drake’s was slim but their calluses fit together like puzzle pieces. 

In this cold detention center/lined on either side by cold, empty prison cells, Darkwing looks at Double-O-Duck’s proffered hand before he ignores it and pushes himself to his feet. 

That refusal is the final straw. Double-O-Duck reels as if from a blow, a deep, visceral pain like someone has reached into the cavity of his chest and  _ twisted _ . 

He drops his arm in the dead air between them. “Darkwing…?” he says, just shy of a plea. But there are no more words forthcoming as devastation settles over him like water over the head of a drowning man. 

Darkwing steadfastly makes his way toward the sealed doors at the exit of the detention center. “Let’s move. Who knows how long we have before they send reinforcements.” 

Double-O-Duck lengthens his stride, confusion and hurt spurring him forward. He overtakes Darkwing just before they reach the doors and places himself directly in his path. Before he can open his mouth, before he can figure out how to put into words the thousand questions in his mind, Darkwing is already speaking a mile a minute. 

“Look, I’m sorry. I...you look like Launchpad, but when I look in your eyes I just...I don’t know you. It’s all, all wrong.” He gesticulates as he always does when he’s nervous, but the movements are smaller and more self-contained. He doesn’t let his gaze dart around, he looks straight at Double-O-Duck, like he would an unknown, like he would a threat. “You just need to give me, give me time, okay?. To get used to this...new you.” 

Double-O-Duck’s mind goes utterly blank as a feeling of helplessness, of inevitability comes crashing down on his head. He’s staring down the barrel of the railgun all over again, feels the blistering heat of the weapon charging up. He has been thrust off a precipice, his heart and stomach and lungs racing up to the back of his throat as he careens into freefall. 

_ Wrong,  _ Drake’s voice repeats in his head like the solid tone of a timpani drum, matching the pounding of his heart, and his head where the concussion has not abated.  _ All wrong.  _

Darkwing moves around him to smack at the door controls until the entryway parts smoothly, and unleashes chaos into the silent cell block. 

But it isn’t an army of Eggheads that awaits them in the hall, as Darkwing had feared. There’s no one, in fact, the hallway on the other side of the door utterly void of bodies, but that emptiness is filled by the volume of a blaring klaxon. The walls are bathed in the red glow of flashing emergency lights, and the deafening alarm quiets long enough for an automated voice to intone,  _ “Self-destruct in T-minus five minutes.”  _

A genuine swear slips past Darkwing’s beak. “They were just trying to hold us off while they scrubbed their base!” he snaps, shouting to be heard over the alarms. “We’re going to lose everything, every sign that they were ever here!”

_ Wrong,  _ Double-O-Duck’s mind repeats, louder than the klaxons.  _ All wrong.  _

Darkwing turns on his heel, walking back into the cell block. Double-O-Duck comes back to himself just in time to catch him by the shoulder. He drops his hand the instant Darkwing looks back. 

“What are you doing?” he yells too. “We need to locate an escape route!”

“I’m not leaving these Eggheads behind to be vaporized,” Darkwing says, the flattening of his brow indicating he’ll brook no argument on the subject. Back in the prison block, the blaring of the alarms filters through in echoes, sounding deceptively distant. He lugs the first unconscious Egghead over his shoulder and looks at Double-O-Duck expectantly. “Well? What’re you waiting for?”

_ Wrong. All wrong.  _

Double-O-Duck’s mouth moves before his mind has caught up with it. “I still remember where their command center is located. Get these Eggheads to safety, while I see if I can salvage anything about what F.O.W.L. is planning.”

Darkwing looks back up at him sharply. “What? You’re not doing that.”

“You said it yourself, we have no idea what F.O.W.L. has in store,” Double-O-Duck argues, already walking backward toward the exit. Resolution floods him, tinged with an astringent edge of desperation. “This may very well be our only chance.”

“Launchpad,  _ no,” _ Darkwing retorts, more fervently now. “Whatever you might find, it’s not worth risking your life.”

A clock counts down in his mind’s eye, damning Double-O-Duck with each vanishing second. “There’s no time,” he says, striving for professional as the grains of sand from a broken hourglass leaks through his fingers. “Follow this hall, and make the first left. Make another left, and you should find yourself at a dock. They keep speedboats there.” 

Double-O-Duck cannot afford to linger, so as he backs away he takes in Darkwing in full, the fire in his eyes barely contained by the fabric of his mask, the strong set of his shoulders, poised to carry the world at a moment’s notice, without doubt, without question. His hair, increasingly messy without his hat, reminds Double-O-Duck of the first time they met, the biggest surprise of his life standing in the doorway with a Starducks to-go cup in hand, boyish and bright. 

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Drake,” he says, utterly candid, the need for secrecy a moot point. “I’ve mucked everything up, but I’m going to set it right.”

He turns his back on Darkwing to the sound of his name, called in increasingly desperate tones. But Double-O-Duck doesn’t allow himself to stop or hesitate in his mad dash, plotting out his course first to the command center, second to one innocuous storage closet out of dozens. The pounding of his heart falls in sync with the blaring of the alarms overheard, a deafening repetition of  _ Wrong, wrong, wrong.  _

But a louder voice, Launchpad’s voice, fires back from the depths of his mind,  _ Fix it. Fix it. Fix it.  _

  
  
  
  


The moon is a pale and sickly crescent above the boardwalk, taking as much illumination as it gives. The same can be said of the stars, faint and few despite the blackness of night, due to the proximity of downtown Duckburg’s interminable light pollution. Instead, the garish facade of Funzo’s Funzone is lit by harsh LED security lights, which splashes stark white against the pier’s wooden boards in a dozen foot radius, allowing nothing to hide in shadow. 

Despite his namesake, and catchphrase, Darkwing is not hiding. 

He stands in one of the merciless pools of light and stares at the entrance, less than two meters away, pacing. Waiting. 

He’s lost track of how long it’s been since he piled the Eggheads in a speedboat, since a few of them awoke and luckily one of them knew how to  _ drive  _ a speedboat. When they finally left the little boathouse, the alarms blaring at their backs had quieted long enough for an automated voice to announce three minutes remaining until self-destruct. 

The Eggheads were more than happy to return to the boardwalk to dump him off before they sped back off into the night, and Drake can hardly blame them. If the shadowy organization he worked for had left him for dead, he’d cut his losses too. 

But now he’s left to wait, with no idea of how much time remains. He won’t know until he sees Launchpad, until the building blows up, until—

Drake scrubs a hand through his hair, leaving it even messier than before.

It’s utterly quiet on the marina, which means that every small sound he hears is amplified to match his galloping heart, thrumming with the velocity of hummingbird wings at the base of his throat, making it difficult to swallow. The chime of bell buoys, the rush and hiss of waves breaking against the pilings below, the creak of the wooden boards beneath his pacing feet. All unobtrusive under normal circumstances, and all of them deafening when Drake can still hear blaring alarms, despite the distance of half a mile and several tons of concrete. 

He takes a step forward. He takes a step back. 

He’s shaking with the knowledge that it can’t possibly have been more than two hours since they dropped Gosalyn off at the mansion, ready for a normal night of patrol. This is as far from normal as things get, even for them. 

Drake is prepared to charge back inside, find out what on Earth could possibly be taking Launchpad so long, and drag him back topside. He wants to do it, desperately. The countdown is a jumbled mess in his head and if he doesn’t act he might lose Launchpad any….second….now. 

The yawning silence mocks him, every round of his rapid pacing a useless exercise. He wants to throw himself back into that base, undeterred by the present danger, doesn’t care if it means sprinting pointlessly down identical gray hallways.  _ Anything  _ other than standing here and doing nothing. He’d die for Launchpad, of that Drake has no doubts. But he needs to live for Gosalyn, and that is the only thing that keeps him where he is. Keeps him  _ safe _ , even though Launchpad might not be for long. 

Launchpad, or at least this strange facsimile of him, this funhouse mirror reflection, who is just as self-sacrificing as the original. Who is always prepared to take the blame upon himself, who searches for Drake first, and takes stock of the situation second. 

But for as much as this Launchpad  _ behaves  _ like his partner, they are not one and the same. Not to Drake. This Launchpad feels like a figment, a trick, a ploy, that twists everything familiar into something distinctly other. 

His combat skills are impeccable, but only when he fights one on one. Drake and Launchpad have moved in sync since the first day they met, since the first time they  _ fought _ . That teamwork is the only way they could’ve stopped Jim, or the Fearsome Four, or Bulba, or the countless thugs they’ve faced since. But this Launchpad, this polished copy, seems to have forgotten all of that. 

His movements are alien, his voice self aggrandizing when he isn’t laying into Launchpad’s supposed faults. Perhaps that’s what he is, that’s what the F.O.W.L. weapon brought out in him—Launchpad’s insecurities made manifest, given a mouth and eyes and misplaced confidence. 

Drake wants to trust him. More than anything, he wants to trust his partner no matter what. But he doesn’t move like Launchpad, doesn’t speak like him, and when Drake looks in his eyes it’s like staring at his reflection in a two-way mirror. They’re the eyes of the man he loves, but he’s become a stranger to Drake. 

_ But _ . But, Drake is resolved to know this man who wears Launchpad’s face, owns Launchpad’s memories. They’re not starting from zero, only thereabouts, but already Drake is struck by a sense of loss, the feeling of a hook tugging his stomach sharply to the soles of his feet. 

He wishes he hadn’t been so cold toward Launchpad, stranger or not. He wishes he’d said a proper goodbye. 

The bay spreads out, tarlike, around the boardwalk and beyond. Halfblinded as he is by the LEDs, he can’t make out the horizon line, the exact point where the endless ocean and sky meet. The world beyond his circle of light is a void, dangers hidden by the dark. Even the brilliance of St. Canard’s clustered skyscrapers are obscured here. 

There’s a creak of metal, like that of a heavy door as it is pushed open. But Drake is standing in front of the entrance, which remains motionless, and he steps back, gaze roving in confusion. 

Around the side of the building appears Launchpad, as if plucked from a dream. A side entrance, Drake realizes stupidly.  _ Of course  _ there’s a side entrance. 

He’s moving quickly, or trying to, clutching a hand to the side of his head as if to put pressure on a wound. But in the glare of the LEDs all is revealed, and Drake sees no sign of injury. 

“LP!” Drake cries, relief tearing at his throat, nevermind how ill-fitting the nickname might be now. 

Launchpad’s head jerks up, and while his expression is dazed it doesn’t refute the franticness that overtakes him. “DW? What’re you doing—you, you gotta move!” 

There is a steady whine building beneath Drake’s feet, a rumbling that begins to shake the pier. 

It seems their five minutes are up. 

Drake’s scarcely looked back up before he’s hearing the pound of running feet and a body, Launchpad’s body, is colliding into him with enough force to knock both of them off of the pier and into the freezing waters below. 

The bay’s so cold it briefly drives the breath from Drake’s lungs, and beneath the rolling surface of the water he hears a cataclysmic  _ BOOM _ . He breaks through the surface, gasping, to a world bathed in fire. 

Like a Titan’s fist had plowed straight out of the ground beneath it, Funzo’s is destroyed from the inside out. The building, along with half of the pier, are in burning, splintered ruins and appear on the brink of total collapse. Thick black smoke rises into the air and once it’s out of the reach of flames disappears into the deep navy of the night sky. 

“DW!” Launchpad’s voice heaves from out of the darkness around him, and Drake searches wildly for its source. 

“Launchpad! I’m here!” Teeth chattering, Drake paddles forward, keeping his head above water. A cold hand touches his own and Launchpad is there, equally drenched and bangs flattened to his forehead. They clutch at each other, gasping, and Drake feels almost dizzy with relief. 

“You’re okay,” Launchpad keeps saying, as they furiously tread water. “You’re okay.” 

An engine rumbles nearby, growing louder. He and Launchpad find themselves blinded by a pair of flashlights. 

“Hey, you made it!” one of the Eggheads aboard the speedboat crows. “And you found the big guy!” 

“Y-yeah, we made it,” Drake replies. “Uh, mind if we catch a ride?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

All the Eggheads, save the helmsman, rush to the side of the boat to drag Drake and Launchpad aboard. Gratitude sweeps through him as he slumps to the deck in a soaking puddle, more water than man. The Eggheads have removed their helmets, revealing green eyes and scars and brown feathers, each of them brilliantly unique once no longer faceless. He allows himself a prickle of guilt at the bruises and black eyes he and Launchpad bestowed, but at this point he figures they’re square. 

Drake reaches for Launchpad, who’s hunched over beside him, coughing up sea water. Putting aside the strangeness between them, he places a hand on Launchpad’s back, rubbing up and down between his shaking shoulders. 

“I, I’m glad you’re alright,” Drake tells him, halting but honest. He’s already had to lose the Launchpad he knew, and at that moment he isn’t sure if he could have survived losing him permanently. 

Launchpad starts shaking his head, bangs flopping wetly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, DW,” he murmurs brokenly, almost too quiet for Drake to hear less than a foot away. 

Drake scoots closer, winding his arm across Launchpad’s back. His trembling has only worsened. “Hey,” he soothes, heart pinching. “Hey, it’s fine. Whatever it is, it’s…” 

A cold feeling settles over Drake that has nothing to do with the breeze coming off the bay making him shiver in his soaked uniform. It’s a sort of numbness, like he’s been thrust back under the surface of the water where light and sound become difficult to decipher. 

“What did you call me?” he whispers. Hope is a dangerous, burning thing in the center of his chest, warring with the ice cold chill of doubt. 

Launchpad lifts his head and there are tears in his eyes, mingling with the saltwater still dripping down his face. “D-DW,” he stutters, shoulders hitching, Drake realizes, but not from cold. “I-I’m sorry—”

Drake cups his cheek with one shaking palm, and Launchpad falls silent at once. “Are you my Launchpad?” Though his voice shakes, he remains utterly serious. He watches the interplay of light and shadow across Launchpad’s face, the flickering flames of Funzo’s and the dark of night. He feels the burn of tears in his own eyes as Launchpad’s expression crumples. 

“For better or worse,” he says, at the same time Drake looks him in the eye and  _ recognizes  _ him. 

“Definitely better,” Drake replies, breathless with wonder and incredulity, as some last reserve cracks open in his chest. He leans in, hands still on Launchpad’s face, and draws him into a kiss that lands like a whisper and an electric shock all at once. Launchpad makes a surprised sound against his mouth, but doesn’t pull away. His hands come up to Drake’s face, cradling his jaw with a featherlight touch. 

“How?” Drake asks when their kiss breaks, keeping Launchpad’s hands in place with a light grip on his wrists. “How are you,  _ you  _ again?” 

Shame settles on Launchpad’s face, in the downward curve of his beak. “I made a pit stop on the way to the command center. To find the intelliray and...fix my mistake.” He glances down at his coat, and the muscles of his arms twitch as if to pat it down, though Drake is still holding his wide, warm hands hostage. “I did find a, a flashdrive, but after our swim I don’t know how much good it’ll do.”

“Forget about the flashdrive, I’m just glad to have  _ you  _ back.” Drake surges forward again to capture Launchpad in a long, grateful kiss. 

“I almost lost this,” Launchpad murmurs as they part. “Our life, you, Gos. Because I was selfish…”

“Not selfish,” Drake argues at once, gently squeezing Launchpad’s wrists. He feels almost giddy, breathless with relief, but he sobers at the reminder of what he almost lost. “I know you did what you did to...to help me, but LP, sweetheart, you don’t need to be perfect. I’d never want or, or expect that from you because no one’s perfect. I know I’m not.”

Launchpad rubs his eye with the heel of his palm, exhaling harshly in what almost passes as a laugh. “I just...I wanna be good enough for you, DW.”

Drake lets go of Launchpad’s wrist in favor of wrapping him in his arms as best as he can, creasing the poor soaked leather of Launchpad’s jacket under his hands. Confusion and not a little bit of fear churns within him, as it did in their cell, hearing Launchpad’s insecurities laid bare. 

“You are,” he says fiercely. “LP,  _ of course _ you are. You’re more than good enough. You, the Launchpad I met in line to get Jim Starling’s autograph, are the only one I want as my partner, you hear me? Without you, I wouldn’t be Darkwing and Gos would be alone or, or worse. You’re my hero, LP. ” 

Launchpad’s hands are fisted in Drake’s cape over the middle of his back, bracketing and holding him in place with equal strength. “Okay,” he relents, dropping his head into the space where Drake’s neck and shoulder meet. “Okay.” 

This conversation is far from over, Drake knows now. But it’s not meant to be had on the deck of a stolen speedboat, freezing and reeling from their latest near-death adventure. It’s meant for late nights on the couch, sitting up in bed. Perhaps even visits to someone who can help in the respects that Drake alone cannot.

But the night is calm once more, the approaching sirens a comforting chorus rather than a cacophony. Holding each other close, they’ve said all that can be said at the moment. 

The Egghead helmsman coughs. “So, uh, where can we drop you, Mr. Darkwing?” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Be sure to let me know your thoughts in the comments below 
> 
> Find me on [tumblr @mighty-ant ](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mighty-ant)
> 
> [I've got a DuckTales podcast](https://amorespatospodcast.carrd.co/) that you should definitely check out! My best friend and I have been reviewing every episode of DT17

**Author's Note:**

> I've been interested in exploring the character of Double-O-Duck ever since he was introduced, and how LP's issues with self-worth might manifest once he's DW's partner.   
> I hope I did it justice so far, but please let me know what you thought in the comments below!


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